


In Memoriam

by WillozSummers (SammieRie)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, bc that's my brand, take some Coldwicker with a side of Wickoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 20:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14838606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SammieRie/pseuds/WillozSummers
Summary: "Not until he's back, I can't even breathe."Julia and Kady get their memories back, and one person keeps running through Julia's mind.





	In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> yeah idk forgive the bad summary. this has been plaguing me for weeks, and I finally got it done. title and a few snippets of dialogue taken from Lost Girl 4x01 "In Memoriam", which is definitely the inspiration of this fic. will probably cross these fandom feelings some more in the future.
> 
> working on a second part to this that features the talk, and finding Q.

“Maybe this is as good as it gets,” Amanda said, pulling Rebecca closer to her. “Maybe we can make it better.” She kissed Rebecca, full of desperation and fumbling fingers, hoping it wouldn’t be their last kiss but savoring every bit of Rebecca if it was. She had mapped Rebecca’s body by now, after hungry nights spent tangled in a fancy bedroom she’d never get used to. They knew each other better than they knew themselves - literally, in this case, given their discovery that they had lost memories.

And now they were so close to getting them back, and Amanda was scared of what that might mean. Had Rebecca forgotten the love of her life? Had Amanda forgotten some life purpose? They didn’t know how big or small what they were missing was, how much their lives would change once they found it. They’d tracked down the crystal they needed, ground it into tea. Everything was ready, and suddenly Amanda had doubts.

“What if we forgot for a reason?”

Rebecca hesitated at that, resting her forehead against Amanda’s shoulder. Amanda’s fingers stroked through her hair, and Rebecca closed her eyes at the touch. She savored it for a moment, how steady Amanda was, how easily they fit together. Shaking her head, she pulled back, meeting Amanda’s eyes. “We can’t just hide from the memories. I don’t want to live a lie, even if it’s a happy one.”

Amanda knew there was no swaying Rebecca, the fire in her eyes that familiar tell of determination. Still, her heart broke a bit at the thought that their live together was a lie in her eyes. Rebecca read the hurt on her face and softened, tucking some of Amanda’s unruly curls behind her ear. “I love you,” she said, voice steady as if she’d said it a thousand times before, as though she didn’t have the worst timing in finally voicing it. “That’s not a lie.” She bit her bottom lip, hesitating a moment before continuing. “But my heart hurts, Amanda, and I don’t know why. Whatever I’m missing… I don’t know about you, but it feels like it’s an important part of me. Like something huge has been taken away. Whatever it is, I’m going to get it back.”

Amanda nodded at that, feeling it too. There was an energy that seemed to buzz through her skin that she couldn’t explain, and she’d find herself dancing her fingers into patterns her body seemed to know as second nature, but her mind couldn’t recall. She loved Rebecca, the way her soft features hid stubborn defiance, her kindness, and her fierce protectiveness. She pulled her close again, breathing in the familiar scent of her honeysuckle perfume and hoping remembering wouldn’t cause them to lose any of this. Pulling back, she kissed Rebecca’s forehead in an uncharacteristically tender moment before determinedly grabbing the mugs from the counter and offering one to Rebecca.

“Cheers,” Rebecca grinned, trying to hide the nerves in her voice. Amanda clinked her mug with a small chuckle, and then they both chugged. The tea was bitter, and had gone slightly cold in their deliberation, but they both downed the full glass anyway, unsure how much they needed to consume. They weren’t clear on much about how this worked - not just the dosage, but how the memories would come back. Would it be like alcohol, the effects slowly building? Or would the crystal hitting their bloodstream act like flipping a switch, memories gone one instant and there the next? Returned as if they’d always been there?

It only took a moment before Rebecca was overcome with dizziness. The memories were returning all at once, but it wasn’t as simple as they’d expected. It was more like watching her life flash before her eyes. It was confusing and utterly overwhelming - images of Mackenzie (a woman with blonde hair who her brain labelled _sister_ ), of Marina (red lips, cold eyes, threatening words, an image of a snake accompanying her), of her first boyfriend and of James (her last boyfriend, a heartache never healed right, a name that started with a J), all flickering too rapidly for her to pull into focus. She stumbled her way over to a chair by the table, and she noticed Amanda - _no, wait, Kady_ , she realized, and held onto that - gripping the sink, eyes screwed shut. She could practically feel the tightness in the other woman’s chest, she looked at her and saw flashes of her face contorted in fear, of her mother with blood dripping from her eyes, a man whose name was on the tip of her tongue dying in front of them both.

She couldn’t take it, couldn’t help Kady when she was still being assaulted by too many distorted flashes of her own - her father leaving, a man she loved looking at her like a stranger, the feeling of a forest burning down around her. She turned away, planting her palms on the tabletop to ground herself, and that gave her mind something to latch onto, something to sort through all the flashes. She’s scrambling under the table before her conscious brain has caught up to the reasoning, but she slides under and breathes a sigh of relief when she finds it painted with an old familiar map, her fingers coming up to trace over it instinctually. She ghosts her hand across a dark green crocodile, hints of green crayon clinging to her fingers, and the memories take over.

Her mind focuses, for a moment, on a memory of a little boy curled up under the table with her, messy brown hair down to his chin. He brushes it aside where it had fallen over his eyes, his brows furrowing in concentration as they both point at various places on the table, drafting out the map with pencil marks. Her brain thinks _Quentin_ and then a second later _Julia,_ her own name, not Rebecca. - _No, that’s not quite right_. She’d tell you her heart thought it, that it pounded his name through her bloodstream, and suddenly she could think of nothing else.

The memories were still coming in flashes, out of order, but now they all focused on him. She saw him at seven years old, swinging beside her at recess; at seventeen, hair still long and shaggy, quiet and hunched, shrinking in on himself; at ten years old, bodies pressed together in her favorite window seat, reading the Fillory books; at twenty-three, walking into Fillory hand-in-hand, head held high and a smile on his face like she’d never seen before. Seeing _Quentin, Quentin, Quentin_ was the same thing as seeing her life flash before her, memories happy and sad and almost every defining moment somehow wrapped up in him. There were other memories on the edge of her consciousness - pools of blood on her apartment floor, staining white cloth, dripping from the chin, from the fangs, of a man who once had such a nice smile - but for now she could block them out, could drown them in a thousand images, good and bad, of _Quentin, her Quentin_. They’d come for her in her sleep, she realized, and that would be worse, but she didn’t plan on sleeping until she had Q.

Her brain continues to spiral, a never-ending cycle of _Q_ helping the timeline of her life click into place, her chest tightening and her breath coming shorter and shorter. Until suddenly she hears a shattering of glass and she’s jolted back to the present, back to her apartment. To Kady standing in the kitchen letting out a sob, and she’s up and rushing over to her before she can think. There’s shards of glass scattered across the kitchen floor, a mug from her architectural firm and _I was never going to be an architect, I should have been a lawyer, why would they choose that?_ She’s not mad about the glass, or the mess, hovering at Kady’s shoulder for a moment, unsure what to do. _She hates me_ , she thinks, followed by, _we were just kissing_ , and wow, that’s a lot to process. _One thing at a time_.

She gently rests her hand on Kady’s shoulder, feels the other woman tense up beneath her. She relaxes after a moment, the fight seeping from her body, and her hand comes up to grip at Julia’s. She turns around to face her, eyes red, tear still rolling down her cheek, and Julia knows she’s trying to hold her composure. It’s a weird sensation, having seen both Kady and not-Kady (Amanda) in this state, both broken-hearted and stubborn. Kady chokes out “Penny, he’s…” and then “oh god, mom,” before breaking down in sobs against Julia’s chest. Julia’s heart twists in her chest, the same image of Hannah as before coming back to haunt her. It’s a familiar guilt, but she tamps it down, holds onto Kady with all the strength she has, lets the other woman break against her. Kady never properly grieved Hannah, she knows, too busy running from Brakebills and regretting running from Penny, finding Free Trader Beowulf and then having everything torn to shreds. She won’t get a chance to properly mourn her now, but if Julia can give her even a moment of it, she will.

A moment is all it is, really. A minute or two of Kady sobbing in her arms - thinking of Hannah and Penny and the nightmare of being under Marina’s control - before she’s pulling back, wiping at her eyes, her hands clenching into fists again automatically. Julia looks into her eyes, tries to think of something to say more eloquent than just ‘I’m sorry’. Kady nods in understanding, and Julia keeps her silence. They stare at each other a moment, memories still trying to sort themselves in the back of their minds.

Eventually Kady opens her mouth to speak, to break the silence. “We were…” she trails off, unsure how to approach it. “I mean, we should talk about…” Again, she can’t finish the sentence.

Julia knows where she’s going, can still feel the hint of Kady’s lips on hers - _Kady, who she’d just been kissing; Kady, who’d been kissing her; and that means something, Julia_ wants _it to mean something_. She can’t face that yet, though. With Kady calmed down, her heart has resumed the pounding of _Quentin, Quentin, Quentin_ with every beat, his name, his voice, his smile the only thing working through her bloodstream.

“I can’t,” she shakes her head, voice clogging in her throat. “Quentin, I have to… Not until he’s back, I can’t even breathe.” She gasps for air, and it’s Kady’s turn to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, glad to put off the inevitable messy conversation.

“We’ll find him,” she promises, and Julia tries to believe her. She pictures Q walking away, a time that he’d only come to warn her, to save her, and her heart stutters in her chest. She remembers the last time she saw him, his heart calling out to her across realms and bridging divinity, and she has hope that Kady is right, that they’ll always find each other.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ ravenclawjuliawicker to yell at me about feelings for either show or prompt me


End file.
